First off, congratulations, just give your intial thoughts on the win.
Amazing. Great. Looking forward to California. I mean, take your pick. The guys put it all out on the field, and we win a little bit longer than we want to to get the first goal, but, you know, they pulled it out in the end.
Your defense has been very solid this year. You've only allowed seven goals, you kept another clean sheets, and just talk about their gritty performance…
I love these guys, man. These guys are, I mean, together, we can do anything we put our mind to. They've been incredible, fighting, defending, working hard, just being together. It's been fun to work with this group. I'm truly enjoying this season with them. They just, yeah, they put in so much work for each other. It's impressive. Yeah.
You made the very gutsy call to take out top goal score, Harrison Watts, but then you brought in Latrell Middleton and he just absolutely made an impact. So, just talk about thought process and what you saw from him.
Well, for us as a group, you know, it doesn't matter who starts, who finished a game. It's about the team, right? If Harrison is not scoring, then somebody has to step up and get the job done. If Harrison is scoring and we need more, somebody needs to step up and help Harrison.
This is not just about Harrison or Latrell that scored the goal, this is about the entire team. This is about the Academy back home, guys that are inspiring the next generation. This is about us together, as I said before, just stronger together, and that's what you continue to see.
I'm not surprised to see Latrell score off the bench. If you look at the results so far, most of our goals have come in the second half from guys coming off the bench. So, it doesn't surprise me one bit.
Our starting lineup makes them tired (haha). Yeah, I mean, that's the name of the game, and then we mix it up with some speed, a lot of skill, and a lot of passion.
I was going to ask about that, second half tactical changes, if there were any, because Miami were on the upper foot a lot when it came to the attack and possession in the first half, and then that was a complete 180 in the second half. So what did y'all talk about in the locker room?
Well, again, this is when you're driving four and a half, five hours, you know, you have to factor in the heat and the drive. It's sitting in the car, right? So, and we are a bit older. We're an older team.
So we tend to plan, not just for the first half, but for the second and potentially, over time as well, right? So when you think about all those things from a strategy standpoint, you have to keep in mind that, you know, if you can do what you do well defensively, you don't have to score in the first half. You don't, you just need one goal to win, and they can come whenever it wants to come in the second half.
And Miami is a solid team in the middle. We knew that. We knew that going in. And so we had to control the middle, understand what they brought to the field, and we got to see that first half, and that's why we made the changes that we did.
Final question, you're into Irvine now. You're going all the way to California. How do you all see your chances for the national finals?
Listen, there's one game out of time. No team, none of the four teams that’s in Irvine, California are easy teams to play out to be, right? So everything is about first possession, second possession, first half, second half, one team at a time, you know? We’ve earned the right to be there, but also respect the teams we are playing, and we’ll take care of business.
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